Tourism, photography, COVID-19 and representations of nothingness

Tourism destinations underwent rapid change during the COVID-19 pandemic and for a time there was the possibility that the industry may never recover from reduced visitor numbers resulting from national and state border closures. However, while an extensive body of academic scholarship has been published exploring the interplay between the tourism industry and the pandemic; to-date, tourism scholars have not considered the value of using photographs from lockdown to understand people's lived experiences. This paper will examine a selection of photographs of Sydney Cove (hereafter referred to as Warrane) and other sites that the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation once occupied. We consider these photos in relation to literature on nothingness, semiotics and Bernhardt and Slaby’s (2023. On being stuck: The pandemic crisis as affective stasis. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 22(5), 1145–1162) recent notion of ‘affective stasis’. We will show how photographs from the COVID-19 period can help us understand what local tourism stakeholders lost during the pandemic, and the challenges local people face when confronted with different messaging about the possible ‘end of tourism’ and the industry’s future.